From Darkness Into Light
by PinkRangerV
Summary: How did Tenaya become Tenaya? Slightly AU.


A\N: They do NOT do enough Tenaya angst in the show.

* * *

_She didn't know how long she had lain on the floor._

_Hidden underneath a deep hole in Venjix's palace was a place of brainwashing, a place where both robots and people could be molded into the shape Venjix wanted. She didn't know how long she'd been there. She just knew the darkness._

_It wasn't the same as the darkness that clouded her eyes. It was within her, deep and boiling, like a disgusting inky pool waiting to poison her. She could feel it taking over more and more as Venjix tortured her._

_A wave of pain flowed through her body. She couldn't even feel the pain anymore, just an odd sensation that she hardly noticed._

_She shut her eyes. She would have cried, but there were no more tears anymore._

_Just the darkness._

_It wrapped comfortingly around her now like a mother's arms, whispering to her, give up, give in, break, little one. You don't even remember your own name. Why keep fighting?_

_Why indeed._

_Slowly, the girl could feel herself beginning to lose. Her soul was gone, she felt, leaving her hollow and empty. She didn't bother acknowledging the next surge of pain. It wasn't worth it._

_An image formed around her in sound. Words._

_"She's trying to draw again, Melinda!"_

_"So? Let her! She's keeping quiet and out of the way, let's reward that, Hale!"_

_"It's not good for her, Melinda. She needs to learn not to expect so much from herself, now that she's blind."_

_The girl turned her head, ignoring it. Whoever that girl was, it was so sad, how much her parents were hurting her._

_Did the girl have parents? She didn't remember. She knew her own past had been as bad as this other girl's. She knew her life wasn't worth living._

_She was pure evil. Poison. Anything she touched, she destroyed. She wasn't worth bothering with, wasn't even worth keeping alive. She didn't know why Venjix bothered. She was useless._

_It hadn't always been this way._

_The only memory the girl had floated up into her mind. She was young, playing in the sunlight and the mountains with her brother._

_Then she saw it._

_A bobcat, golden and beautiful, looked at her._

_It had some significance. The girl didn't know why, just that it was the one thing she'd ever wanted. Slowly, she dropped her toy sword and crept up to it._

_The bobcat watched without fear._

_Her brother called for her to come back, but as she stepped closer, the scene grew brighter and brighter, as if all the colors in the world were welcoming her for the final time into the mystery of their beauty. Her tiny, pale hand reached out and touched the bobcat's side._

_A single, explosive instant of sight._

_She was in another world, one where everything was more beautiful than anything the girl had ever known. She looked at the bobcat, and it looked back, its eyes soft and welcoming._

_And then the girl realized that this memory was...different._

_It was tugging at her. Asking her to follow._

_The bobcat nipped her sleeve gently. Standing, the girl followed it, walking with it into the mountains of memory. The bobcat led her around to another hill, and in it a cave._

_It led her through it._

_She felt herself falling slowly apart as she entered the cave, everything that made her a person falling away. She let it go, following the golden, glowing bobcat deeper and deeper. Finally there was only her and the bobcat. She didn't even have a body, she was simply a soul._

_She looked at the bobcat._

_It turned and walked away._

_She found herself staring into the darkness, alone, and she wept. Bitter, flowing tears, like rainwater, fell from her eyes as her body began to form again, a child kneeling in the darkness. Her screams and cries echoed in the place._

_She was alone. The bobcat had abandoned her._

_Everyone had abandoned her._

_Then, slowly, her tears stopped._

_They'd left. They'd forgotten her. She wasn't worth forgetting, she didn't deserve this..._

_She was evil. The darkness whispered that in her mind._

_But she was also strong._

_Flame erupted around her, not singing her in the slightest as she stood. She leapt into the air, and slowly she felt the flame transforming her into a bright, golden demoness..._

_And then there was nothing._

Her eyes opened.

"HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?" The thing raged.

"My master, I don't know." A black-shaped robot said. "What are you doing awake, human? You should be dead!"

"Wh..." She gulped, trying to force moisture into her mouth. "Who am I?"

The one-eyed thing and the robot stared at each other.

"YOU ARE MY GENERAL, SEVENTH-GENERATION VENJIX TECHNOLOGY." The one-eyed thing said.

A hint of flame whispered in her mind.

She stood.

"No." She said. "I'm Tenaya."

Venjix considered.

"PREPARE FOR DOWNLOAD OF MY INSTRUCTIONS, TENAYA SEVEN."

Tenaya nodded. For the moment, she would obey.

But soon...

Soon the flame would consume it all.


End file.
